viz.

Image Credit: Eric Rice's Flickr

H/T : 2D Code Blog and Hampton for the QR reader demonstration

In anticipation of Viz Blog's upcoming collaboration with the DWRL Immersive Environments Group, I'm devoting this week's post to a bit of background on QR codes - two dimensional barcodes that can contain several different types of data: URLs, a limited number of plain text characters, phone numbers, or SMS. In the image above, Eric Rice's "nerdscaping" of his driveway has been captured from space by Google's satellite view. Although the code wasn't quite completed when the photograph was taken, Rice's project will inevitably be only one of many giant QR codes that will soon appear on satellite images. Driveways, yards, parking lots, and building rooftops are all spaces where these codes can be placed to embed information on specific locations in the real world.

QR codes are matrix type codes created in 1994 by Denso Wave that have begun to catch on the U.S. in the last few years. Unlike basic barcodes which only contain information in a horizontal direction, QR codes contain information in both horizontal and vertical directions.. According to Denso Wave's informational page, this allows QR codes to contain "a considerably greater volume of information than a bar code"and more than other forms of 2D code developed in the United States including PDF417, Data Matrix and Maxi Code (the 2D code found on UPS packages). 

Image Credit: QR code (links to Viz) created through Kaywa's free QR code generator

QR codes are fascinating images in themselves. They resist ready classification for they are not only visual, but informational. In a way, they are like rabbit holes that have an immediate presence and simultaneously function as a gateway to data or virtual spaces. As such, they have already begun to be incorporated into art and design such as the work of Italian-Belgian artist Fabrice de Nola: 

Image Credit: Interaction with Fabrice de Nola's painting Auditorium Roma, from de Nola's Flickr photostream

Auditorium Roma is a De Nola painting featuring QR codes that link to information about Rome and pertinent Wikipedia pages.

Image Credit:Fabrice de Nola's painting Auditorium Roma

In his work, De Nola explores the linkages between visual art (and the visual elements of QR codes) and information. The meaning of his work is enhanced by the information featured in the QR Codes, as in his piece Still (Mirror Edit), a brief history of viewing Earth from space: 

Image Credit: Fabrice De Nola's Digital C-Print Still (Mirror Edit) from De Nola's Flickr photostream

Perspective affects meaning even more significantly in artistic work featuring QR Codes. Furthermore "Scannability" becomes essential to the process of making meaning, and this process itself more intentional than associative. 

Image Credit: Close up of Fabrice De Nola's Digital C-Print Still (Mirror Edit) from De Nola's Flickr photostream

In some of the QR Artwork I viewed on the main Flickr Photostream, my iPhone QR Code readers (the basic and rather efficient free QR Reader and the less reliable pay app quiQR) had difficulty scanning the images, particularly those in which the design of the QR code itself had been visually altered. De Nola's artwork was highly accessible because he does not manipulate the appearance of the codes themselves, but instead places them within the context of a work of visual art. His work is a prime example of the ability of QR codes to link aesthetics with information.